


The moon in your eyes

by redroseinsanity



Series: Hold your breath, count to ten [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, brief mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27135598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redroseinsanity/pseuds/redroseinsanity
Summary: There's something breathing in the dark and it isn't Keiji.
Series: Hold your breath, count to ten [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980692
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16
Collections: Haikyuu Horror Week





	The moon in your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> For Haikyuu Horror Week!
> 
> This is my first time writing horror so I’m excited but also apologetic if this is not on par with your expectations. In that vein, I’m not sure if I’m tagging this as well as I should be, so if at any point you feel like you want to nope out, please do!

**Day 3:**

**down in the valley / the sliver of a crescent moon / ~~a screech to fill you with dread~~ /** **golden eyes blinking in the darkness / ~~a special move / thirty-seven~~**

There's something breathing in the dark and it isn't Keiji. 

He doesn't know when it started, but all he knows is that he paused to catch his breath and squint at the path a while ago, and he heard it. A barely audible, rasping inhale and exhale, regular as his own. 

At first, he'd wanted to believe it was a night sound, something to blend in with the rustle of leaves in the breeze or the night call of nocturnal birds, or even the scurrying noises of tiny creatures underfoot. 

But this is something else, he can't tell where it comes from, if it's above him, behind him, beside him, perhaps in front of him, always one step ahead. 

Even if it were, he wouldn't know for the moon is hardly a crack of yellow in the sky, the thinnest curve like the glowing imprint of a fingernail mark on black cloth. 

He can barely see his own hands, as pale as they are and as near as he waves them in front of his face. 

So Keiji is in the countryside, with blood on his clothes and the knife still in his hand, with a haze of black shrouding everything around him and something breathing in that dark murkiness. 

Even without light, he knows that the only way is forward. The land rises in steep relief on either side of him, narrowing his path and offering both shelter from the harsh winds and a stifling sense of soil pressing in from both sides. 

Going back is not an option; not to the uncertainty of when he'll have a meal again and the certainty of a beating, not to the screaming that wakes him and that he forces himself into slumber to drown out, and not to the constancy of pain in every sense, pushed beyond his limits and forced to cling to life by a thread, wondering if life is really worth clinging to at all. 

So Keiji puts one foot in front of the other and keeps walking. Because in a box with three sides sealed, there's really only one way to go. 

He's tired, down to his bones, to the point that every movement feels like too much effort and the breathing in the dark devolves from alarming to almost comforting in its consistency. 

There's not much that can scare him now, not when he's come from hell.

He's heard the stories about this place, of the strange noises and the people who venture in and never return. He's heard of the cursed being who dwells here and of their bloodthirsty ways. 

Still, he syncs his breathing with the push and pull of air that gradually gets heavier, he can tell it gets closer to panting but never seems to come any nearer to him. 

Keiji walks until the knife slips out of his fingers, the blood dark and sticky—he doesn't register the dull thunk as it thuds to the grass. 

He walks until his head begins to spin, the stars crashing into the mountaintops and the ground curving and undulating—he doesn't remember his last meal. 

Keiji forces his legs onwards until they can't anymore, they feel leaden and numb, and then he just stands, trembling, wondering how far he's gotten and how long more he can stay upright—all he has left is his will, but even that is ebbing. 

Then the breathing stops. And Keiji has been so attuned to it, so used to it, has been tethering his breaths to it so much so that for a few seconds he holds his breath too. 

It resumes, this time louder or maybe, nearer, Keiji still can't figure out where it is. All he knows is he's surrounded by the pitch black of the wee hours, that he's so far into the middle of nowhere that he's finally free even if he's without aid, and that the heaving breaths draw in to him, a bubble shrinking. 

Keiji can't see much but the flash of gold is impossible to miss. They aren't a regular shape, nothing is right about this. 

He should be terrified, but the glittering gold eyes open and they loom over him, brighter than the moon. 

Abruptly, he can smell decay and the metallic scent of blood. A jaw that unzips itself to open like a cave, stretches like a macabre smile; in response, Keiji allows the hint of a smile to touch his eyes. His mouth does not remember the motion but something in his eyes does. 

The breathing is now a low growl that permeates the night and it sounds like a lullaby to Keiji. The darkness is a blanket and the golden slits are a beacon. 

The only way is forward so Keiji walks on, eyes soft, into the embrace of the unknown. 

**Author's Note:**

> I should also be posting concurrently on [tumblr](https://redroseinsanity.tumblr.com/) as well. Come say hi!


End file.
